The six hours between are long, grueling and grinding. Time won't pass. Passes. Passed too fast.
Just before two everything gets tense, as it all heads to the peak, and everything goes quiet for a few seconds when the first piece of free skate music signals the first competitor for the Ladies Freeskate, and the first judged skate of the last day, that opens the floodgates that won't close, for any of them, until eight, and even, then, not entirely until nearly ten.
(Though he'll know where he stands -- or falls -- before that.)
He finds somewhere quiet to stretch. Out of the way. Where people's stares don't linger too long still, and he's not waving comments that he's fine (it's fine, he's, he'll just, they've).
It's midafternoon, while he's using a foam roller, when his stomach decides he's starving, that he's never eaten so much as a crumb in his life and he's dying, and he just presses his hands to his jacket. He doesn't even think about food entirely, so much as some strange, warped relief that he hasn't lost track of exactly how it is he falls apart in the last seven days, too. It's the first time, in the Sports Arena, he turns to tell Victor something ... only to realize.
The thing that paralyzes him the longest the decision about his music or earbuds. Victor isn't here to make sure he doesn't get in lost in his head, away from the clock (and Yavok and Lilia are with Yuri, somewhere, as they should be). He keeps picturing Victor's panicked face once those hands had closed over his ears. (Sometimes neither of them are particularly good at what they both refuse to give up doing. His heart squeezes at the whole concept of anything but.)
He checks his phone. Tries to avoid anything with current updates. But there's no message from any of those three.
(He can't imagine Victor without Maccachin now.)
There's a sigh, too heavy, like he's conscripting himself to his own hell when he pulls out his earbuds and stows them in his jacket pocket with his phone and gloves. He is his only keeper today. The only person to tell him what to do, where to be, when, how to handle it all. (He'll just have to be strong enough. For Victor, and Maccachin. And himself.)
The tv's are on, and Nekola lands four quads before he falls in the middle of combination, and then couldn't bring it back. Crispino's piece is ... different from any of his earlier videos. There's something ... sad about it. It makes him more fluid. Grabs the heart. Like he'd found the heart of his piece ... and broken it. For the better. People are yelling about how flawless it was.
Victor would have loved it; (and, of course, Yuuri just start sweating, profusely,
fingers tapping on his thighs, pacing, the clock is screaming in his veins).
He puts his earbuds back in. But stays in the main area.
It's worse when Seung-gil returns in tears. Seung-gil. Always apart from everyone. Reserved. Above. Tears sliding down his cheeks, even as he walks with his back straight, shoulders out, beside his coach.
Yuuri knows that feeling. He's terrified of it. It's under his skin right now, staring at the mirror of itself. Of his past. There's no one to look at, look to. To tell anything, not tell anything to. To ground. He pulls his phone out to change playlists.
And stops, stuck on the front of his phone, where it has two bubbles.
He reads it once. Twice. Pulls his ear buds back out, leaning against the wall. Willing himself to hear Victor. Heart thumping in his chest. Demons trying to tear into in his head. Reads it twice more, before he hears it;
Yuri's Allegro Appassionato starting, fierce and fast,
and he pushed off the wall, walking back towards the crowd before even realizing he is.
no subject
Just before two everything gets tense, as it all heads to the peak, and everything goes quiet for a few seconds when the first piece of free skate music signals the first competitor for the Ladies Freeskate, and the first judged skate of the last day, that opens the floodgates that won't close, for any of them, until eight, and even, then, not entirely until nearly ten.
(Though he'll know where he stands -- or falls -- before that.)
He finds somewhere quiet to stretch. Out of the way.
Where people's stares don't linger too long still, and he's not waving comments that he's fine (it's fine, he's, he'll just, they've).
It's midafternoon, while he's using a foam roller, when his stomach decides he's starving, that he's never eaten so much as a crumb in his life and he's dying, and he just presses his hands to his jacket. He doesn't even think about food entirely, so much as some strange, warped relief that he hasn't lost track of exactly how it is he falls apart in the last seven days, too. It's the first time, in the Sports Arena, he turns to tell Victor something ... only to realize.
The thing that paralyzes him the longest the decision about his music or earbuds. Victor isn't here to make sure he doesn't get in lost in his head, away from the clock (and Yavok and Lilia are with Yuri, somewhere, as they should be). He keeps picturing Victor's panicked face once those hands had closed over his ears. (Sometimes neither of them are particularly good at what they both refuse to give up doing. His heart squeezes at the whole concept of anything but.)
He checks his phone. Tries to avoid anything with current updates.
But there's no message from any of those three.
There's a sigh, too heavy, like he's conscripting himself to his own hell when he pulls out his earbuds and stows them in his jacket pocket with his phone and gloves. He is his only keeper today. The only person to tell him what to do, where to be, when, how to handle it all. (He'll just have to be strong enough. For Victor, and Maccachin. And himself.)
The tv's are on, and Nekola lands four quads before he falls in the middle of combination, and then couldn't bring it back. Crispino's piece is ... different from any of his earlier videos. There's something ... sad about it. It makes him more fluid. Grabs the heart. Like he'd found the heart of his piece ... and broken it. For the better. People are yelling about how flawless it was.
Victor would have loved it;
(and, of course, Yuuri just start sweating, profusely,
fingers tapping on his thighs, pacing, the clock is screaming in his veins).
But stays in the main area.
It's worse when Seung-gil returns in tears. Seung-gil. Always apart from everyone. Reserved. Above.
Tears sliding down his cheeks, even as he walks with his back straight, shoulders out, beside his coach.
Yuuri knows that feeling. He's terrified of it. It's under his skin right now, staring at the mirror of itself. Of his past.
There's no one to look at, look to. To tell anything, not tell anything to. To ground. He pulls his phone out to change playlists.
And stops, stuck on the front of his phone, where it has two bubbles.
He reads it once. Twice. Pulls his ear buds back out, leaning against the wall. Willing himself to hear Victor.
Heart thumping in his chest. Demons trying to tear into in his head. Reads it twice more, before he hears it;
Yuri's Allegro Appassionato starting, fierce and fast,
and he pushed off the wall, walking back towards the crowd before even realizing he is.